Raphael Glucksmann, a French politician from a fringe political party with one seat in the country’s legislature, has apparently angered the extremely touchy Donald Trump administration by suggesting that the US should return the Statue of Liberty. The French gave Lady Liberty to the US in the 1880s in celebration of the former British colony’s independence a hundred years earlier, as well as the freeing of slaves.
Glucksmann feels that, under Trump, the US is now associating itself with “tyrants” such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and can no longer be regarded as “the leader of the free world”.
All well and good for the French to demand their gift back but, as an African citizen, what Hogarth wants to know is this: when is France returning all the art and antiquities its successive administrations stole from African countries during colonial times?
Show some gratitude — all of you
Incensed by the French politician’s call, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said they would certainly not return the statue and channelled her boss's recent attack on Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky: “My advice to the low-level politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States that the French are not speaking German right now. So they should be very grateful to our great country”.
She was, of course, referring to the role of US troops in freeing France from Nazi occupation in 1944. She omitted to add that the US troops were were accompanied by allies from elsewhere, including Canada. But her boss would no doubt have been unhappy if she recognised Canada as an independent country.
Cupcake now wants to be sweet
All of this American aggression seems to have spooked our McBuffalo. Remember a time when Cyril Ramaphosa would declare, Robert Mugabe-style, that Trump should focus on his US and he, Cupcake, would focus on South Africa? Now, with the threat of being kicked out of Agoa and talk of targeted sanctions being imposed on key politicians, he is calling for cool heads.
He plans to tell his comrades in Johannesburg not to provoke the Americans further by changing the name of Sandton Drive, which happens to be the address of the US consulate, to that of a Palestinian activist who hijacked an American airliner. But given that the Phala Phala saga refuses to die, Hogarth fears that some of the Johannesburg comrades might mistake the president’s otherwise good counsel for mysterious US dollars speaking from under a sofa.
Put taxi drivers in charge of traffic
Unless you have had the misfortune of driving from OR Tambo airport on a Sunday evening and getting stuck on an unnecessary roadblock, you would not know that the Ekurhuleni metro police exist. They make their cooldrink-loving counterparts in Johannesburg look like hard-working cops. And that takes some doing.
Hence Hogarth was perplexed on Wednesday to see so many of them on the road. Were they out there keeping the roads safe for motorists? No, they were causing chaos at the height of rush hour by illegally blockading the R21, N12 and other major routes - with their official vehicles, no less - to protest their working conditions.
Hogarth has no problem with workers fighting to improve their conditions, especially in this Ramaphosa economy, but he has no sympathy for those employed to enforce the law behaving lawlessly.
At this rate, Ekurhuleni may as well hire taxi rank marshals and drivers to keep its motorists safe from the anarchic traffic cops.
Did fat cakes play a role?
Remember Yakhe Kwinana? She is one of those surprise characters who stole the show during those long Zondo Commission hearings that kept us glued to our screens during lockdown. She was called to testify about her role in crippling the once mighty South African Airways, but the chartered accountant ended up rivaling Trevor Noah as the country’s top comedian when she ended up talking about the economics of selling “fat cakes”.
Well, she is back in the news again, this time as an accused in a case of extortion and damage to property. Old Hog can’t wait for Kwinana to take the stand and tell her side of the story, given her hilarious performance at the commission.
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